Richard Grossman: Building Infrastructure Helps In Short And Long Term

One of the best ways to create jobs in Connecticut is through the promotion of infrastructure projects that will provide jobs while underway and contribute to our long-term competitiveness once completed. A bill signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy this summer, which enables the University of Connecticut Health Center to expand, is a good example.

Transportation is another. Anyone who commutes in — or through — Connecticut knows that the transportation infrastructure is inadequate. Investments in repairing roads and bridges and boosting the effectiveness of bus and train lines and airports will bring important benefits.

In the short run, improving the transportation infrastructure will create construction and engineering jobs. In the longer term, such improvements will allow Connecticut workers to spend less time and money getting to work; it will help them reach their destinations more safely and in a more fuel efficient manner, sparing the environment. It will also allow products made in Connecticut to reach markets in New England and throughout the world in a more efficient manner, boosting our competitiveness.

Borrowing to undertake such projects will no doubt pose a challenge, but the benefits are well worth it.

Connecticut has had zero net job creation since 1988. We have our jobs strategy exactly backward. Jobs are created by small business and shed by large business, yet Connecticut subsidizes big business and penalizes small business.

We must not just talk about being pro-business, we must be pro-business. For the construction industry, this means allowing all qualified contractors and subcontractors the opportunity to bid on publicly funded projects. Equal opportunities are vital to Connecticut's economic turnaround.

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